ALT-3 What Women can do about getting Overcharged for Car Repairs
It's sad to say, but it is a fact that women in general are prone to getting taken when it comes to car repairs. There is a reason for it, and I saw it many times when waiting for my own car to be finished getting a repair. One instance was where a woman pulled into the lot, and the mechanic waved her towards the bay area.
She tells him that she had to get a jump start because her battery was dead. She then tells him she thinks it's her alternator not charging anymore. He sends her to the service desk, and takes a double look to make sure she doesn't see what he was about to do. He decided to agree with her that her alternator is in fact bad by reversing the polarity, and caused the alternator to fry.
The mechanic walks into the customer service, and tells the woman that she was indeed right, and complimented her on being so knowledgeable about her car. Had she noticed that her accessories were all working normally when driving the car, it should have been obvious that the alternator was working and providing the power for the accessories.
It's not that she was expected to know this, but at least keep the lip zipped, and let the mechanic figure out another way to get you for more repairs. The battery was bad of course, but at least she could have prevented by not suggesting something to his advantage like the alternator.
Another time was when a car was towed in for evaluation as to why it wouldn't start. The woman who owned the car offered her thoughts to the mechanic, and suggested the starter may be at fault. The mechanic hops in her car and cranks the engine several times. He had that look on his face as though he just cornered a victim. All it was that at fault was an in-line fuse to the fuel pump, a ninety nine cent fuse, that was it. However, it cost her hundreds of dollars in the end for offering her thoughts.
This kind of rip off goes on every day, because women are very unaware of the pitfalls of dropping a car off for repairs. There is a way to help prevent such legal thievery, and that is to smarten up a bit when it comes to talking to a mechanic. Don't offer any opinion of your own or of anyone elses for that matter about what might be the problem with your car.
You don't want to give the mechanic any reason to fix what you thought was the problem when in fact it wasn't. Instead, ask for an estimate based on what he finds, and at the same time tell him that you took the car to two other shops for an estimate as well, in order to get the work done for the least amount of money.
What this does, it makes the mechanic dead honest. He knows that you might have gotten an honest evaluation, along with the right estimate for repairs from at least one of the other shops, so he isn't going to risk losing you to another shop if he can do the same job for an honest price. What I'm suggesting is that a mechanic needs a reason to be honest.
The more innocent the woman, the greater the risk of being taken advantage of, and if they offer their thoughts on top of their appearing to be ripe for a repair rip off, it becomes a mechanics dream for a perfect theft. They figure if they don't do it, somebody else will, and so to them it's all about the money. By doing what I suggested about letting a mechanic know you've shopped around for the best estimate, that alone should lower your risk almost ninety percent. Just don't give them a reason to take advantage, and minimize the chances even further by saying as little as possible about what you think about the problem.
